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My wife is pregnant, and we'll be having our first child in 3 months. The one thing I am most nervous about is eventually, my little daughter will ask about the world and how it works. I am a logical, rational, science minded individual still struggling personally with the disconnect between Scripture and Science. For instance, I cannot grasp the creation fully. I believe in Hawking and Einstein and the Big Bang. Yet, I must also accept scripture, and these things clash. I can rationalize most of it, but not all of it. The long and short of it is, I want my Daughter to understand both, yet I myself do not. My wife says I'm over thinking the issue. What do you folks do?

Edit:
Thank you all for the responses. It gave my Wife and I much to talk about, and I agree that I am indeed over thinking it. I'm going to just plan on enjoying raising my daughter, and I'll pray that when the time comes, the Lord will help me know what to say. And between now and then, I will strive to strengthen my own testimony.
I didn't mean to kick up an argument, and I hope everyone has a good night.

One way I used to explain it when I was previously a member was "The things you are learning in science are the tools God used to build the Universe". It made enough sense for me, perhaps it will for you!

I don't know. It has to do with the priesthood and my parents always taught me that because of the priesthood, all things obey the word and will of God. They didn't go into depth about it. Just make sure you put God first.

When it comes to a clash between science and faith, you will never be able to harmonize things without abandoning parts of science or your faith, or both.

Probably the only option you have is to reject that doctrine you find to be contrascience, and accept that which is not. Or otherwise reject science you find to be contrafaith and accept that which is not. The way of the fundamentalist or the way of the liberal believer, in other words.

As far as your child is concerned, probably best to teach your views as your views, and tell her to come to her own conclusions based on her understanding the evidence. That allows her to stretch her critical thinking muscles, even if she comes to different conclusions than you would.

Perhaps. It's also church doctrine to accept truth regardless of source. I personally rank epistemological doctrine as superceding historical doctrine. I am a true, believing Mormon, but I would need Jesus Christ or Heavenly Father to directly reveal to me that a global flood indeed occurred as it has been taught.

There is no disconnect between scriptures and science. I'll explain below. But first, here's what I teach my kids:

(1) What you learn in church is probably true, but probably not true. That means you need to find out for yourself. So learn how to read scriptures, pray, get answers, know good from evil, make important decisions with God's input, etc...

(2) What you learn in science is probably true, but probably not true. That means your need to find out for yourself. So learn how the scientific method works, what error bars mean, etc... and learn science from first principles for yourself.

Now let me explain why scriptures and science do not conflict.

The ACTUAL science, things we can say we KNOW with certainty through scientific principles, is SHOCKINGLY few. To get an example of what I mean by actual science, look at the extraordinary lengths we went through to figure out whether the Higgs boson exists. You can go through all of physics, the most rigorous of the most rigorous sciences, and probably write a small book containing all the actual knowledge we have in that field that has been verified with a very high degree of accuracy.

Things like evolution, geology, astrophysics simply do not compare with the extraordinary lengths we went through to prove, for instance, that the force of gravity is proportional to the masses of the objects involved and inversely proportional to the distance squared. These sciences do not have enough data to justify what they claim. There probably isn't enough data in the universe to justify their claims to a degree of certainty whereby I'd question God's word.

Some people say that since we can't know for sure, we should pretend to be sure. This is nonsense. We can't know for sure, so we don't know for sure, and we do the world a disfavor, as scientists, to suppose certainty where none can possibly exist.

Combine this with the SHOCKINGLY small subset of things that are actually doctrine, or religious truth, in the LDS church. Actual scientific knowledge and actual LDS doctrine simply don't meet (except in one area I describe below).

We have the same problem in our church, people who are running their mouths off about things they don't know about for sure. I think a good example is what happened in 1978 with the priesthood. We were wrong, we supposed to know something when there was no revelation whatsoever. We didn't dare to stand up to Brigham Young or the others who perpetuated the false doctrine (and I have now come to know that it was false, never based on scripture or revealed doctrine.) What did it get us? A whole lot of crow to eat. Bitter crow. We're going to pay for our ignorance and willingness to go along with false doctrine for a long time.

We have GOT to stick to what we actually know, know what we know and how we know it, and discern knowledge from belief and mere speculation. We have got to stop teaching each other things that are not doctrine, and stop discussing them even conversationally as if they were doctrine.

Where do science and religion meet? The idea that the universe follows a law, that we can comprehend that law, the law is logical and reasonable, that we can do experiments on the universe and it will conform to the law, are all religious ideas about the nature of God and his creation, the universe.

But also they meet on the question of truth. What is truth? How true is truth? What do we have to do to find truth, and how do we preserve it untarnished? Physicists and apostles have done a great deal to help us understand what these things mean and what we need to do. We would do well to learn about the process, rather than focus on the end result. Then, understanding the process, use it!

TL;DR: Don't teach your kids to accept truth on authority alone. Teach them how to discern truth from error, both scientifically and religiously, and how the two processes are really the same.

extraordinary lengths we went through to prove, for instance, that the force of gravity is proportional to the masses of the objects involved and inversely proportional to the distance squared

The thing is, while this relationship is convenient and is a pretty good approximation most (almost all) of the time, it's still not really 'true.' It's pretty well established that the relationship explains roughly what happens between two objects, but it's not the last word, and we now have different paradigms through which to understand the relationships. Science is fluid and it is always progressing, and it is not useful to think of theories as 'true,' or as the final word that science can have on the subject. They are accepted as true until a new idea supplants them and explains or accommodates a greater selection of phenomena.

I guess this is what you are saying. Personally, I feel religion is at odds with science. However, I grant that it is not impossible to accept both at the same time, in spite of the apparent contradictions (this approach is not for me, but it doesn't make you a bad person to take this approach (in fact I think it is a great act of faith)).

Perhaps OP would do well to read some Kierkegaard. Also I'll plug 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,' by Kuhn.

As I understand it, it is unhelpful to approach science as a method of establishing 'truth.' It is better to think of it as the process through which we develop models that are reasonably accurate at predicting the workings of the universe and that accommodate as many phenomena as possible.

But this point is maybe more relevant to epistemology than science. Do we know the world is 4.7 billion years old, give or take a few hundred million years? I'm not a geologist, but I'm pretty sure any geologist worth their salt would say 'yes.' For all intents and purposes, we can say we know much. In the interest of accommodating religious belief, it is convenient to say it is impossible to verify with certainty our models even though they are incredibly useful for our present purposes.

I'm agnostic, was just responding to jgardner's statements about how much of science has been 'verified.' I was rambling and I definitely didn't make it clear in what way I thought Kuhn was relevant to the discussion. Just wanted to recommend a book that was important to the formulation of my beliefs post-mormonism

Many scientists outside of Physics are happy to pretend they know things they cannot. This is why, for instance, several scientists were sentenced to prison in Italy for giving a bad prediction.

Those scientists who do not know and cannot know are doing a disservice by pretending they do know. They are injuring the reputation of people like chemists and physicists who actually have reproducible results and theories that explain a lot of things and predict things.

I know it's hard to hear that evolution, plate tectonics, the formation of stars and galaxies is not on the same level as, say, the Standard Model, but it is absolutely true. I do not believe in evolution because the evidence is simply not compelling, nor are there any experiments anyone can perform to falsify the claims.

You never hear a physicist say, "We are at least as sure that the Higgs boson exist as evolution is real", but you hear biologists say, "Evolution is as sure a gravity." Why is that? Because the biologists have no concept of what it take to be sure about anything.

What happened in Italy is a really poor example, as they weren't going to give a prediction because (surprise!) it's not something that can be easily and accurately predicted, but they were forced to, and then jailed for predicting wrong.

Also, to put it frankly, you sound like a terrible scientist to just openly and generally discredit entire fields of science because they're not the same as your own. Formation of stars and galaxies not quite on the same level as the Standard Model, despite the fact that you can look into the sky with high-powered telescopes and observe stars in several different stages of their life in order to piece things together? The same for evolution, galaxies forming, plate techtonics...

You don't seem to understand how science works, or the formulation of theories. Instead, you sound like a self-important prick.

You freely admit that astrophysics is not at the same level as particle physics, and then try to disagree with me because I say the same?

Or are you saying that we must trust the theories of astrophysics, despite the fact that it is not at the same level as physcs? Should we trust the work of astrologers too? I mean, they can't do physics with what they have to work with.

Science works the same everywhere. You have error bars. Sometimes those error bars are really, really wide, and there is no way to make them smaller. If you try to represent them as being tight, you're deceiving people. That's another word for lying. Science is not lying about what you do or do not know, it is stating facts as you see them, not as you wish they were or as you interpret them.

Scientists who cannot distinguish truth from untruth are not fit to be called scientists. It drives me up the wall when someone says, "This is as certain as gravity!" but then clearly demonstrates they are working with a sample size way too small to say anything of the sort, or poo-pooing perfectly valid theories because they prefer their own.

Disagreed! He's just saying that some parts of science (physics) we can prove with entirely quantitative methods like math, whereas some, like geology or biology, are shockingly qualitative, yet still called the same "science" as math or physics. As a passionate student of the sciences I would have to agree with this assessment.

I think you both could stand to study a little geology. If you did, you wouldn't be so quick to insult geologist as practitioners of "shockingly qualitative" science. You are welcome to come to my lab and show me which parts of my mass spectrometers and electron probe microanalyzer are qualitative.

I thought I was clear. I went from a physics background to geology in my college studies and was, really, shocked by the difference. As Sentenza pointed out, it was mainly due to the difference between a science based on mathematical proofs and a science based on physical evidences.

Math works on proofs. Geology is not a soft science, but it has a different framework of evidence rather than proofs. That doesn't mean that lack of 100% certainty about any given geologic theory provides wiggle room for, say, Noah's Flood. It doesn't.

I "qualitatively" calculated how much water it would take to cover the entire Earth. It was "shockingly" a lot more than there is on the planet now. Also, given that my specialty is in mantle petrology please don't try and tell me that the water was subducted. It wasn't.

Teach your children that Heavenly Father is the ultimate scientist, and we're still playing catch-up, both scientifically and spiritually. Remind them that answers come when Heavenly Father knows we're ready for them, and that we can make ourselves ready through study, prayer, and faith. Sometimes this means we have to go for a while without knowing the answers to some tough questions, but eventually answers come.

Congrats to you, by the way. Fatherhood is the best job in the world.

Now here's a few things for you to read, because I sense that part of your question is "how can I help my children develop a greater spiritual strength than my own?" I hope these are helpful, whether I'm right about that assumption or not.

I remembered that I was once a 10 year old who went to my dad with a tough question. It was "Dad, if God made the world in a week, what's the deal with dinosaurs?"

Rather than give me his opinion or just straight up tell me 'an answer' he said "Read your scriptures."

I took him at his word and discovered God. That's why 1 Ne 10:19 is on there. That was the one that introduced me to God. I know if you trust your children to God, he will take good care of them. God promised me an answer, and, when the time was right, an answer came.

Go look up the history of modern science. Note that the first real modern scientists believed that God ordered the universe, that God's law was absolute, and that men could understand God's law. This is the foundation of modern science. It's why modern science came out of Europe and not the Middle East or Asia. Europeans had the concept that God's rule was absolute, logical, and universal.

Seriously! Isaac Newton was deeply religious. So was Galileo and pretty much all the fathers of modern science. It's what drove them to apply logic relentlessly to the stars and mechanics and fluid dynamics and such.

Are you sure about that? I'm fairly certain that it was religion that motivated Galileo to look at the stars and Newton to solve the mechanics problems. Newton, as you may well know, was very deep into scriptures and symbols, and was trying to see parallels between the motions of the stars and the stories in the Bible.

There has been a whitewash of this history by humanists, who had no part whatsoever in developing the principles of modern science.

I can tell you, for a fact, that many physicists (non-mormon) whisper that they are really trying to uncover the mind of God by exploring physics. It is a very spiritual, religious experience for them. One physicist once showed me his proof for God, using basic physics. Another once, in class, paused, admired a particular set of equations, and said, "This is the sort of beauty that makes you want to believe in God. There really is no explanation for why these things are so elegant than that." They dare not expose themselves publicly, due to the shaming and witch-hunts that go on in scientific circles.

It's the simpler explanation. Non-laboring classes outside of priestly classes have also produced science. Invoking religion as the inspiration in the case of priestly classes is an unnecessary complication.

In this simpler narrative, we account for man's interest in both gods and science as arising from a common impulse (to explain the universe), rather than man's interest in science arising from an interest in gods. As a side benefit, that makes more sense, since gods need not necessarily be orderly (one might believe in chaotic gods) whereas we understand the biological basis for man's impulse to explain.

Thus, you can have Newton or Godel or one of your physicist friends connect their scientific investigations to gods or other mysticism. At the same time, you can have Einstein or Sagan (those suspect humanists) flip it around and connect Spinoza's God or transcendent experience to scientific investigations. It's the same as your model, but without the superfluous dependency relationship that would exclude Einstein, Sagan, or other humanist scientists.

There has been a whitewash of this history by humanists

No. I suppose you could say that religion and science can claim a common heritage, but by the time of the Enlightenment, religion is clearly vestigial and the humanistic account of science is not only sufficient, but superior.

So, you're saying science started from religion, but then superceded it?

Doesn't science still rely on religious beliefs, namely that the universe is ordered, we can understand that order, that we can experiment with the universe to reveal its order, and that the order follows logic and reason? The fact that it tends to work for many things is no evidence that it will work for all things, and yet scientists believe, baselessly, that it will.

So, you're saying science started from religion, but then superceded it?

No, I'm saying that both started from the human desire to explain (or, at least, have common roots there). Think of religion as a parasitic twin to science that was identified as such in the Enlightenment.

Doesn't science still rely on religious beliefs

Once we start talking in very abstract philosophical terms, we've got to be very careful with language. "Religion" covers a lot of different concepts, not any one of which is necessary to correctly use the word.

namely that the universe is ordered, we can understand that order, that we can experiment with the universe to reveal its order, and that the order follows logic and reason?

Basically, we can approach this two ways, and then question whether they are "religious" in any sense that helps your original argument.

The first is to say that we accept the order of the universe as axiomatic, and proceed from there. In this case, it's true that the axiom is "baseless"--but that's the point of an axiom? I see that it has a common thread with "religion," but I don't see the point of baldly calling an axiom "religion," especially with all the baggage of that term. Much less importing an actual religious artefact as the axiom (e.g., some ill-defined "God" concept).

The second is to recognize that we are the product of this ordered universe. We have evolved to engage it on that basis. It's not a formal axiom; we didn't reason "the universe must be ordered, so let's make science!" We innately seek to find and describe order (even when it isn't there), and so we do make science.

Why would early modern scientists try to link math and physics? Why would they trust the results of experiments?

The Ancient Greeks believed that the universe was governed by gods ruled by passion and whimsy. That explains why you get one result when you do one thing one day, and a different result the next.

The Christians who were our early modern scientists said, "Foo!" They believed that God wasn't joking when he said he was a God of logic and reason and governed the universe with law. They believed that they could understand the mind and will of God, a concept that could easily be derived from the fact that Christ came to bring people to live like God.

When confronted with unpredictable results, they studied more furiously. When they looked at chaos, they tried to find laws and patterns.

Ancient Greeks simply said, "Zeus" or whatever. They didn't have any reason to believe that simple laws governed all the universe. Logic was a game to them, a fun little thing that was interesting.

I encourage you to actually read the writings of the so-called first scientist Aristotle. It's really pathetic how little observation and induction he does. Instead, he just asserts something is the way it should be, and then doesn't even verify it. If you want to call that science, then you'll find a lot of people in the "other" sciences who agree with you. Just assert something is true, and it is true.

Jesus Christ taught, "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." This is the basis of all modern science, right there, in a simple sentence uttered by Christ. This doctrine doesn't appear in Jewry. It was new revelation from God about the nature of God, or rather, God's law.

This is the core of physics, the core of the modern science that has been so successful in so many ways.

Jesus Christ taught, "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." This is the basis of all modern science, right there, in a simple sentence uttered by Christ

When that baby girl is born, she'll care about food, a clean butt and being warm. You put her down in one spot and she'll be there when you come back 10 minutes later. Life will be simple. Not easy, but simple. Food, diapers and sleep.

You have years before she'll be able to ask you questions. And when she does, it'll be things like 'Why are you so big, daddy?'. Years will go by and she'll start learning from people other than you and your wife. She'll want to know what you think about what she heard.

Just because she's 5, doesn't mean you explain things like she's 2. Keep it simple, but be honest and remember that you're teaching an eternal being that has already 'grown up' in another existence.

In the meantime, the best thing you can do to 'explain' is by doing. Go to Church every Sunday and tell her how much you enjoy going to Church with her. She'll just know that it's important. Go home teaching every month and tell her how much you enjoy helping your families and she'll stop missing you when you leave. Let her see you paying tithing with a happy attitude and she'll know it's something you do happily and it brings blessings.

You'll have to explain much less if you show her not only what to do, but how to do it.

Doesn't genesis claim the heavens and the earth seem to be instantly created in one verse?

Then doesn't light freely begin travel? (And doesn't the big bang predict the universe at first must have been opaque to light?)

Then don't stars, planets and moons form?

And isn't the earth at first lifeless?

Then don't plants form?

Then doesn't water based life form?

Then doesn't land based life form?

Then don't humans form? And don't humans form "from the dust" as if whatever created us has an unbroken chain from dust? (cough... evolution... cough)

For a Hebrew culture who knew nothing about the big bang and evolution they have a remarkable track record of predicting before science the chain of events leading from the formation of stars and galaxies to planets with life to humans.

Also, the interesting thing about is it requires something akin to a God to make it all work anyways. Please read my first comment here. At the end of the day, the equations of science have to assume there is some self-existant entity (be it quantum fields or strings or whatever) that you assume must require no explanation and yet is the cause of all life in the universe. It is is because it is. (“I Am that I Am” Ex. 3:14) Read the blog comment as it has more details.

So, I am convinced that science and the concept of God and some creation that mirrors Genesis does not contradict science. And I have no problem teaching my kids this.

So here is my question for you: how did a culture existing thousands of years before modern science get the entire order flow correct from formations or stars, to lifeless earths, to earths populated with life first in water then land, then humans form "from the dust" after everything else takes place first? How do you explain how Genesis was so spot on before any scientific clues were around to motivate this picture? Genesis predicted this order-flow well before modern science and was right.

My 2 cents: If someone were to describe to you Quantum Field Theory, they'd probably use imagery and scenes of things you are familiar with.

And you probably would still have no idea what they were talking about.

Genesis 1 is God telling us how he did it, in terms we can barely understand. Some of the words seem familiar, but we can't even begin to contemplate why he put those words in the order he did. Until I've reached a point that I understand what happened such that I can see the best way to describe it is by reading Genesis 1, I can't understand what God was talking about.

Once we figure out how everything works, I imagine we'll interpret what he said very differently than how we do today.

IE, define them in terms a chemist of physicist could understand. Is "waters" referring to H20, or something else?

Is firmament space-time, or empty space, or atmosphere, or something else? In another part of the Bible, it refers to God rolling out the heavens like a scroll. Ok, what in the world does that refer to? Is it the same thing he did in the creation story? Or something before or after?

What about light? Is that referring to knowledge, IE, the light of Christ? Or photons? Or force-carrying bosons in general? Or some other force-carrying boson from a different set of particles?

Once we get these nouns out of the way, then we need to define what he means with the verbs and other parts of speech.

Until we can make a definitive statement on any of those things, no one knows what in the world God is talking about. You could assume the words mean what you think they mean, but I bet dollars to doughnuts you're wrong.

So, I am convinced that science and the concept of God and some creation that mirrors Genesis does not contradict science. And I have no problem teaching my kids this.

To me, science is man learning to be more like God on a very mechanical level. I think it's important that neither science nor church claim to have all the answers. Both are seeking truth knowing that there are human limitations to understanding everything.

This is a great philosophy. I would add that while neither claim (or should claim) to have all the answers, each can make a claim that it has the best answers in its own realm.

If you're sick and you need medicine, look to the avant guarde of science. If you are distant from God and need help following the Plan of Salvation, look to the Gospel. Don't ask your local PhD what the meaning of life is and don't ask your Bishop what the Church teaches on biofuels.

OP's example of the Creation is an interesting overlap, kind of. But I'd stick with the same principle: don't ask the Gospel how God created the world, and don't ask science why He did so.

The words are there, I have studied them, but I confess: They make no sense to me. Praying about it has told me that my understanding is too pathetic to even grasp the concepts God is trying to communicate with us.

Do you understand what they mean? What does he mean by firmament? How did he divide the waters? What are the waters? Etc, etc... No one can answer these questions, at least in a scientifically testable way.

Having studied physics, I know when I am in over my head, and I know how to tread deep waters, but these waters are simply too deep for me.

The word "firmament" is used to translate raqia, or raqiya` ( רקיע), a word used in Biblical Hebrew. The connotation of firmness conveyed by the Vulgate's firmamentum is consistent with that of stereoma, the Greek word used in the Septuagint, an earlier translation. The notion of solidity is advanced explicitly in several biblical passages.[4]

The original word raqia is derived from the root raqa ( רקע), meaning "to beat or spread out", e.g., the process of making a dish by hammering thin a lump of metal.[3][5] Raqa adopted the meaning "to make firm or solid" in Syriac, a major dialect of Aramaic (the vernacular of Jesus) and close cognate of Hebrew.[3]

Conservatives and fundamentalists tend to favor translations that allow scripture to be harmonized with scientific knowledge, for example "expanse".[6] This translation is used by the New International Version and by the English Standard Version. The New Revised Standard Version uses "dome", as in the Celestial dome.

If I were to make a general statement of "The Sun is a lightbulb in the sky", couldn't scientific evidence prove that statement wrong, despite it being a general statement? How about the Sun revolves around the Earth? Or the stars you see at night are bugs caught in a giant black blanket in the sky?

Statements such as "X is Y" depends on how you define X and how you define Y, and whether the features of X align with the features of Y. Physicists get pedantically precise. Your light bulb question led to my knee-jerk reaction, "What do you mean by light bulb? Incandescent or fluorescent? Or do you mean any process whereby light is produced by heat or exciting the electrons?"

As for the Bible, we don't have any book to definitively tell us what X and Y are. We are left with the scattered interpretations of the prophets, none of which have been adopted as canonical LDS doctrine, and speculation and personal revelation. How anyone can make a scientific statement that the creation is right or wrong is beyond me. You could probably prove particular interpretations of the creation story are not congruent with what we observe in today's world, but even then, there's a lot of blanks you have to fill in that could be filled in a different way.

So yes, at this time, it is impossible.

When God decides to reveal to us how he created the earth, or just give us a bit more knowledge on the topic, enough that we can actually test what he says, then we can start talking about science. So far, he hasn't done that.

It seems like you're selectively reading Genesis to support your conclusion that it's based on accurate science. Here's one hole: Genesis says that plants (v. 11) were created before the sun (v. 14). How does that work, exactly?

Here's another: birds evolved from terrestrial animals - dinosaurs, to be specific. They don't predate them. Fish -> Birds -> Land animals just doesn't make any sense and isn't supported by evidence.

To most people, this is clearly an allegory and not intended to be an accurate proscription of how life came to be.

For a Hebrew culture who knew nothing about the big bang and evolution they have a remarkable track record of predicting before science the chain of events leading from the formation of stars and galaxies to planets with life to humans.

The Hebrew creation myth is very similar to other cultures', and if you're this generous, you could argue that most ancient civilizations had more scientific knowledge than they actually did.

Ah, but we have several other accounts of the creation that add some depth to it. I'm not a literal creationist. I subscribe to the "creative periods" model, in which a day represents a period of time. If I remember correctly, the temple's version of the creation is more in line with what JosephSmidt used.

What is hilarious is this book is thousands of years old and you can find only 2 problems in the orderflow which are sketchy. For instance, the sun is a star and stars were before life.

And it is hypocritical to say "Mr. I-didn't-actually-respond-to-any-of-your-points." when you failed to answer my question how they got nearly everything right across the board without modern science as an aid. You conveniently dodged that issue. :)

when you failed to answer my question how they got nearly everything right across the board without modern science as an aid

I think this is a great way to test claims of literal prophecy, but in this instance your analysis is coming up a bit short.

and you can find only 2 problems in the orderflow

I would say that a lot of the ordering choices are gimmes, even for primitive cultures. For example, which is going to happen first: life on earth, or the creation of the earth? Which is going to come first, plants, or animals that eat plants? Etc. Once you get down to just the harder ones, this creation myth isn't performing much better than coin flips.

Again, you're being extremely liberal with your confirmation bias, and if you were to be this generous to any other creation myth, you'd think they were a culture of scientific geniuses as well. This is the same problem I have with Hugh Nibley. If you want it to be true bad enough, you can make it look like anyone knew anything.

I can find plenty more problems with the narrative, and I wouldn't be the first. Creating Eve from a rib, for example. It only takes one logical inconsistency for something to be incorrect, so listing a lot of them (which has been done to death already) doesn't seem like a productive use of my time.

Confirmation bias seems to be main diet of apologetics (my problem with FAIR etc.). It is pretty obvious from even a cursory study of geology that the creation narrative is not description of the geologic history of the Earth. I really hope that one day people will stop trying to use scriptures as textbooks for science.

I have no problem accepting the creation narrative in the scriptures as just that, a narrative. They tell us that there is a Creator and an order to the world nowhere in there does it describe how anything was created. The vast majority of the elements that comprise the Earth came from supernovae elsewhere in the galaxy. This is a pretty important point that isn't mentioned anywhere in scriptures. The implication is that other stars and planets where created and destroyed billions of years before our planet could even be formed.

This idea is actually pretty in line with how I view creation and the nature of God as well. Even in a Mormon narrative, we have no idea what God might have created before He got to earth. I'm not sure which narrative it is, whether in the OT, POGP, or temple, but it mentions using material that already exists and organizing it into a world. Who knows where that material came from? Your explanation is just as likely as someone else's. The only thing we have is a general idea of things that relate specifically to the existence of this planet and its relationship to God. The rest is speculative.

Actually this point is very important for everyone in this forum to understand. Here is some background reading as one example of my point.

Lots of people are against gay marriage but most people against it don't feel compelled to make it their daily calling. Those who do are significantly more likely to be homosexual and their compulsion is a way for them to reinforce their secret insecurities.

This is just a psychological reality. Many people can be against X but normal people don't feel they must be obsessed with X 24/7 unless deep down they are worried they struggle with X.

So it well may be in this case. Many people don't believe in Mormonism and feel it is bad. But most of them don't feel that they have to spend every waking hour attacking it. And of those who do it is highly probably that deep down they are worried Mormonism is in fact true.

So, for these reasons I am happy to see many like bendmorris not able to spend one day away from us. It suggests he secretly is one of us and just won't admit it. :)

Insecurity can drive obsession, but so can many other factors. Why not admit it? Quite frankly, it would add to your credibility.

Actually, I used to be obsessed with a belief which was motivated by insecurity (at least in part), so much so that it took me nearly a decade to admit that I might be wrong. And honestly, I don't feel the same way about the church. Pride factors in, but not fear. And sometimes I don't even care about pride. Sometimes I really just want to know what's true. And I feel that that is only really possible, if I am willing to accept either conclusion.

I honestly don't believe this. I think you keep coming back because of insecurities you have about your own beliefs.

Let me explain. I don't believe in Hinduism but yet going after them doesn't consume my life. I don't believe in the KKK and feel they are very bad but don't spend every waking hour on their forums because I know they are so obviously wrong people will see it even if I don't tell them.

Open any psychology book: Only someone highly insecure about their own beliefs would spend all day every day trying to attack people who don't agree with them. Think about it, if you actually believed our religion is so wrong that it is obvious then you wouldn't feel it is your duty to be here 24/7.

The fact is deep inside you know that us being wrong isn't so obvious and so psychologically you feel that you have to dedicate you life to attacking us in fear people won't see it without you. That my friend is a deep insecurity. Us being wrong must not be that obvious to you. You have to keep reinforcing it to yourself and others to keep going each day. And it is very interesting.

So don't pretend: you will keep coming back. You will say you have more productive things to do and yet you will come right back every single day. :) Your insecurities need daily reinforcement.

The fact is deep inside you know that us being wrong isn't so obvious and so psychologically you feel that you have to dedicate you life to attacking us in fear people won't see it without you. That my friend is a deep insecurity. Us being wrong must not be that obvious to you.

There are other explanations. For example, ex-JWs, ex-Scientologists, etc. also tend to spend more time talking about their former religious groups (including perceived contradictions in teachings, organizational criticisms, accuracy of historical claims, etc.) than others do. The question is, what do these groups have in common? Is it that Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Scientology are all so convincing on their face that the bitter sinning apostates who leave these religious groups must constantly reassure themselves that these religions are false to assuage their insecurities?

You have chosen an incredibly self-serving explanation for bendmorris' behavior. Why choose the self-serving explanation rather than accept bendmorris' own explanation (which is also consistent with the facts) and then bring it into an unrelated argument in which you were on unstable ground? If we are going to play armchair psychology, could it be that your choice to behave this way reflects your own insecurities?

I agree and so will go back on my personal reddit ban. (It was a fun few hours while it lasted!) But my comments on /r/lds are never as appropriate as the anti-Mormons are so I realize I need to go again.

Unfortunately, what's true isn't always obvious to everyone. The human mind is good at believing. It's not always good at finding the truth. That's true about a lot of things, and it's definitely true of religious beliefs.

If you can't understand the difference between me talking about Mormonism (which I was a member of for almost my entire life, and which most of my family and friends are still adherents to) and you talking about Hinduism (which has absolutely no effect one either of our lives) you must not be trying very hard.

Open any psychology book... (opinionated rambling)

I dare you to cite me a psychology book or study for any of what you just said.

trying to attack people who don't agree with them

In what way have I done that?

Look, this comment was off topic and personally insulting, and I've come to expect more from you.

You shouldn't be personally insulted. Just because you make an interesting case study is not something to be ashamed of. Most biology graduate students who do not believe in the Mormon Church do not have comment histories almost exclusively relating to Mormonism without any comments on scientific forums. (Only checked a few past pages but still)

As any psychologist will tell you, what you do in your free time speaks louder about your true passion then anything else. And for someone who enjoys science, your brain seems to prefer topics relating to Mormonism significantly more so hence your significant preference to Mormon related subreddits over scientific ones.

This isn't bad or personally insulting. It is just interesting.

Now, I post much more to LDS forums then scientific ones as I freely admit I do love my religion. It is what saves and what I think addresses the fundamental questions of reality in ways science never can. So it makes sense I am always on here. What doesn't make sense is why someone who favors science over Mormonism is always on here and never on scientific forums and that comes with many implications of what secretly you are more passionate about.

When I had my first son, I was worried about the same stuff. Then I held him in my arms for the first time and all that went out the window.

There will be time for figuring out explanations later on. Enjoy those moments as your child grows up and walks and talks and hugs you and smiles at you. You will have more joy and happiness because of your children than anything else in life.